CULLMAN COUNTY, Alabama -- A Cullman County couple cruising on their motorcycle through the rolling hills of the Logan community saw a cougar or panther cross the road in front of them, they say.

"It was a big cat," Allen Goodwin said. "It was a solid color, dark brown-reddish with a long tail. It was not an overgrown house cat."

Goodwin knows there are reportedly no big cats in Alabama, but he insists that he and his wife, Melony, spotted one cross County Road 831 on the clear morning three weeks ago. They said that it was just 50 feet away as they approached.

They identified it as a likely cougar or Florida panther after looking at pictures of the species.

Allen Goodwin said he'd been skeptical in the past when he read stories about purported big cat sightings. "I didn't believe it. This really shocked me," he said.

"I am a believer now," Goodwin added. "There is no denying it is a big cat."

No evidence of big cats

Keith Gauldin, assistant chief of wildlife for the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, said there's been no documented evidence of a big cat in the state since 1947, when a Florida panther was killed in Chilton County.

"It is not that we don't want to believe or refuse to believe," Gauldin said. "We just don't have documented evidence in the form of pictures or tracks."

He added, "With all of the game cameras put out in the woods, we get pictures of bears but never cats."

Jud Easterwood, wildlife biologist and supervisor for Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources District Office in Tanner, said during the winter, researchers have staked down deer carcasses in hope of getting footage of golden eagles for a survey.

Cameras have captured images of everything from coyotes and stray dogs to bobcats and foxes, but no big cats.

Still, Gauldin pointed out that wild animals don't adhere to state lines or scientific estimations of their range, so it is always possible that a large cat could have found itself deep in Alabama.

He said that the Conservation Department gets several calls a year concerning big cats.

Sometimes, the callers send photos, but close examination shows that the big cats were overgrown housecats. Or, the picture turns out to be a Photoshopped image, or something snagged from the Internet.

Gauldin speculated that some big cats might be exotic pets that had escaped from their enclosures, although he said that such situations would be rare.

In Alabama, Gauldin said, most people who report a big cat in the wild actually saw bobcats, otters or black coyotes.

He said bobcats, which have short tails, are common throughout the state. Their coats can range from pale brown to highly spotted, and they can be up to 2 feet tall and weigh up to 35 pounds.

Still, some central Alabama residents feared a jaguarundi could be responsible for killing household pets, according to an AL.com report from June. Wildlife experts at that time thought the likely culprit was a coyote, although Gauldin said that it could have been a bobcat.

Gauldin said a jaguarundi - a small cat present in Texas and South America - isn't likely to travel away from coastal areas.

Both Allen and Melony Goodwin say the big cat they saw was about the size of a German shepherd.

Normally, Allen said he would have had his helmet camera on, but he lost it earlier this summer while on vacation.

Melony said that when the cat crossed the road in plain sight, she exclaimed to Allen through the intercom system, "Oh my gosh!"

"I haven't ever seen anything like that, like we saw that day," she said. "It was strange."

Range of the Florida panther

Several decades ago, panthers ranged over seven Southern states.

In the present day, the Cougar Network says that the Florida panther is the only officially recognized population of big cats in the Southeast.